


Where you tend a rose, a thistle cannot grow

by sapphire_child



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Community: then_theres_us, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-24
Updated: 2011-03-24
Packaged: 2019-01-27 23:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12593064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire_child/pseuds/sapphire_child
Summary: The Doctor sat vigilant at her bedside and read Lewis Carroll until her feverish brain allowed her to rest, but soon enough she was shaking her head at Kipling’s whimsy and being enchanted by the kindness of Sara Crewe and the transformation of Mary Lennox and by the time she had progressed from broth to solids they’d finished off the bookshelf and he was tramping the ten miles or so back to the TARDIS every other day to find new stories for her.





	Where you tend a rose, a thistle cannot grow

There are times in between adventures, sometimes, when they retire to the library. When she runs her fingers along the spines of ancient books and marvels aloud at how they all fit inside a little blue box (and god this must be what his head must be like, all that stuff crammed in there and he just _smiles_ ).

There are times when there isn’t any running or screaming or crying or bleeding or loss. Days where everybody lives or they’re just feeling plain lazy and introspective and it is then that they find a quiet spot and sit and thumb through page after page together until they lose all sense of time.

He’s not sure when it first started. He remembers he was a bit rough as guts those first few readings. Snapping at her for interrupting and asking questions, his delivery as awkward and stilted as their friendship sometimes was in the beginning. But he’s got a remarkably expressive voice when he puts some effort behind it – has moved her to tears and made laughter bubble up from deep within her belly time and again since then.

It’s a talent that has surprised him. Being able to make her laugh – him! All surly crassness and biting sharp sarcasm and yet he makes her laugh.

Perhaps though, it really began in earnest the day that she fell ill in the bitter chill of a northern winter. Yes. They were put up by a woman who gave Rose the room with a bookshelf full of children’s stories forgotten by a little girl long since grown up. The Doctor sat vigilant at her bedside and read Lewis Carroll until her feverish brain allowed her to rest, but soon enough she was shaking her head at Kipling’s whimsy and being enchanted by the kindness of Sara Crewe and the transformation of Mary Lennox and by the time she had progressed from broth to solids they’d finished off the bookshelf and he was tramping the ten miles or so back to the TARDIS every other day to find new stories for her.

She still drifts off now sometimes, her head in his lap as he reads the classics to her. They help her relax where children’s stories once served to make her smile. Rubbish stuff and nonsense most of these books – but then so is a lot of the poetry, read to make her pulse thud in perfect iambic pentameter.

He stays away from Shakespeare. From Donne and Shelley and Keats. Anything with metaphors about the ephemeral nature of roses. Love poetry. It’s all a bit too saccharine this time around. Prosaic. Unrealistic.

He is far more enchanted by the shapes her mouth makes as she works her way through _The Secret Garden_ by herself. She’s never been much of a reader, but with his encouragement she determinedly tries. She stumbles over awkward words, looks to him for clarification and nails them every time.

He has never taught so much and yet needed to teach so little. And he is so _fucking_ proud of her sometimes he could just burst. It seems ridiculous, but there you have it. She is his brave, clever, human girl and oh, she is _so much more_ than the lot she has been given in life. So much cleverer than she’d ever give herself credit for and the way she loves...just no holds barred, open arms, forgive you anything, ineffable and indestructible love.

She is exactly the kind of story he needs to be immersed in right now. New beginnings and learning, and letting go of all the unimportant little things he thought he could never forgive or forget.

Where you tend a rose, he is learning, a thistle simply cannot grow.


End file.
